Blood pressure is one of the indices for analyzing circulatory diseases, and performing risk analysis based on blood pressure is effective in preventing cardiovascular diseases such as stroke, heart failure, and myocardial infarction, for example. Conventionally, diagnosis has been made using blood pressure measured at a medical institution during a hospital visit, health checkup or the like (casual blood pressure). However, research in recent years has found that blood pressure measured at home (home blood pressure) is more useful in diagnosing circulatory disease than casual blood pressure. This has lead to sphygmomanometers for home use becoming widespread, and there are said to be over 30 million in homes across Japan.
In order to measure blood pressure accurately with a blood pressure measurement device, the cuff needs to be appropriately wrapped around the measurement site such as the upper arm. However, with blood pressure measurement devices to date, it was difficult to determine whether the cuff was appropriately placed, and placement varied depending on the person, resulting in not being able to measure blood pressure accurately.
With respect to this, Patent Literature 1 (JP 2005-305028A), Patent Literature 2 (JP 02-114934A) and Patent Literature 3 (JP 2008-188197A), for example, disclose technologies for determining whether the strength with which the cuff is wrapped is appropriate, based on the amount of air sent to the cuff and the manner in which the cuff pressure increases at the start of blood pressure measurement, in the process of increasing the cuff pressure.
Patent Literature 1: JP 2005-305028A
Patent Literature 2: JP 02-114934A
Patent Literature 3: JP 2008-188197A